


Pipe Dream

by lasairfhiona



Category: West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 15:13:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasairfhiona/pseuds/lasairfhiona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the 1st Lines 1000 LJ community. Topic #26: "The Room smelled of cigarettes and stale beer."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pipe Dream

The room smelled of cigarettes and stale beer. It was the last place he expected to be in again. Sensory memory assaulted him. Inhaling deeply, the smoke filled his lungs as if he'd take a drag of the cigarette himself and the booze, oh the booze. It brought back memories of a time long put to rest, or so he thought.

It didn’t matter that he now wore an Armani suit and Italian leather shoes. He was suddenly in fatigues and combat boots. The bar he walked into wasn't a yuppy bar in Georgetown, it was a ramshackle building on the streets of a city in the jungles of Vietnam carved out by the Sea Bees with a wooden floor and no airflow.

The smoke was so thick it created a haze, dulling the suits and beautiful women who'd come there for one thing and it wasn't companionship. All he saw were the men in the squadron. Some were ghosts of men who'd never come home. Others were men who'd gone home, but were too broken to make it.

Others were men like him. Men who learned to cope at the bottom of a bottle. The beer of Vietnam had turned to aged scotch by the time he'd hit bottom and called Jed to come get him.

He had to get out of here. The past was infringing too much on the present and it would be too easy to lose himself in that past. Way to easy, especially after the last year. But first he had to find her. He couldn't leave until he talked to her, until he tried to fix the mistake he'd made.

He couldn't have been more surprised today when he'd received the call from Cliff Calley telling him she was back in town. Cliff told him where to find her and when. She would be expecting Cliff but would get him instead. As he scanned the bar looking for her, he wondered, would she be happy to see him or would she walk away one more time?

Finally, he found her. She was sitting, with her back to the room. He didn't need to see her face to know it was her. He knew. He knew the slope of her shoulder, the line of her back, the tilt of her head. "Ainsley," he called quietly when he was close enough for her to hear him.

She turned and her surprise at see in him was evident. "Leo! What? How?"

Pulling out the chair across from her, he did the opposite of what he wanted to do and sat down. "Cliff called me. Apparently he thought we should talk."

"He shouldn't have. We have nothing to talk about," she told him, shaking her head.

"I beg to differ."

She pushed a stray stand of hair back behind her ear and looked at him squarely. "You made your feelings quite clear about how we couldn't have a relationship," she stated, setting her glass down with a thud to make her point.

"Am I not allowed to make a mistake? Am I not allowed to realize how much you mean to me? How much I miss you?" he asked, reaching out to grasp her hand as it lay on the table only to have her pull it away as soon as he made contact.

"Yes. Yes, you are," she conceded. "Just as I am allowed to no longer trust you." She paused, taking a deep breath. "You broke my heart, Leo, I'm not going to give you another chance to do that again. It doesn't matter that you say you've realized you were wrong to end it. I *can't* go through that again. I *won't* go through that again," she told him, suppressing the fact that all she really wanted to do was crawl into his arms and forget the past couple years.

"That's it then?" Leo asked, balling his hand into fists to resist the urge to grab her glass and down her drink in one gulp. 

"That's it, Leo. Go back to the White House, to the President. Forget what was and what could have been if you hadn't gotten cold feet. Forget me." She started to say more but shook her head and closed her mouth. How could she convince him when her head and her heart didn't agree? It was just best to leave.

He watched her as she got up and walked away without even looking back. He was right back where he started when he walked into the bar tonight, led there by a pipe dream, then assaulted by memories of old. Now the smell of the cigarettes and stale beer wouldn't just remind him of the bars in Vietnam. Now they would remind him of her.


End file.
